1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a motor vehicle door lock or the like with an outer housing with an entry slot for a lock hinge, a rotary bolt that moves in the entry slot, a lock pawl that holds the rotary bolt in a locked position and an electric drive for the for the lock pawl.
2. Description of Related Art
The known motor vehicle door lock on which the invention is based (EP-A-0 589 158) is characterized in that it functions without a key-operated lock cylinder and has a simple design with few mechanical parts. In this motor vehicle door lock only the essentially necessary parts are located in the outer housing, notably rotary bolt, lock pawl and electric drive. Here the rods usual up to now can be eliminated because of the purely electrical control of the drive for the lock pawl. Operating ease is high because of the electrical opening from outside and inside, assembly costs are low. Numerous functions are combined in a simple way in this known motor vehicle door lock. The closed system is overall quite strong for transport to the assembly site, it has fewer individual parts and is easy to build, antitheft protection (protection from opening from the inside when a window pane is destroyed) can be easily made electronically, namely simply by interrupting the control of the electric drive, correspondingly, electric child-proofing is easy to integrate.
Emergency operation is achieved by a reserve battery and controlled by a crash sensor. Optionally also to provide additional mechanical unlocking, which takes into consideration complete stopping of all electrical components, cable pulls can be used in this known motor vehicle door lock. They engage exposed carrying elements of a bent metal carrying plate.
It is also known in the art (DE-A-42 28 235) to coordinate the lock pawl with an antitheft lever which, in the engaged position, blocks the lock pawl for its part in its engaged position. Thus it is avoided that the lock pawl can be raised or pushed away from the outside, for example by a hole made purposely in the outer door panel. This cannot happen either through the necessarily open entry slot for the lock hinge.
A fundamental concept applies to electronic control of motor vehicle door locks in general and we refer to its contents here ("Smart Card--Good Bye to the Auto Key" Siemens Magazine, special edition "Special FuE," Spring 1995, pages 24-27). The modified door handle and lock mechanics mentioned in this concept are not explained further there, they reflect on the above-mentioned concept or similar concepts.
The above-mentioned concept of a motor vehicle door lock is in many respects oriented toward modern and future-oriented requirements of motor vehicle door locks, but still leaves room for further improvements.